Posts filed under 'CSA'
I’m enjoying the colder-weather crops we’ve been receiving more than I expected. I can’t help but laugh a little at myself when I get excited over a particularly lush bunch of broccoli rabe, or think I’ve really scored because we got another bag of sweet potatoes.
This week we picked up a small head of broccoli, a large bunch of broccoli rabe, another large bunch of Toscano kale, a quart of white potatoes, a bag of sweet potatoes, a quart of beets (no greens), some braising greens, and a bag of carrots.
I really enjoyed the Vegetarian White Bean & Kale Soup I made with last week’s kale, but I had enough of it to freeze so I want to do something different this week. I’m leaning towards Mashed Potatoes with Kale.
I’m making a small batch of Sweet Potato Fries tonight, but the rest I’ll use in my Sweet Potato & Black Bean Burritos this weekend.
I’ll probably combine the braising greens with the broccoli rabe, and do a pasta and sausage dish with them. I’m looking at this Savory Carrot & Tarragon Tart to put a dent in my carrot stash. The beets will keep — I’ll hold on to them until I’m ready to roast them as a side dish.
Only three more weeks in this year’s share. According to Roxbury Farm’s blog, they’ve harvested a bumper crop of cauliflower, and I’m eagerly awaiting my portion!
October 30th, 2008
When I planned my menu for this week, I had no idea a huge, cold, rainy, windy storm was upon us. Wet leaves are whipping around my yard, I’m chilled to the bone. It is a perfect day for soup.
I noted in the title that this soup is vegetarian, because many of the recipes I found with kale included sausage. Take Mark Bittman’s Pasta With Black Kale, Shiitakes and Italian Sausage, for example. While I do cook with sausage every now and then, I was looking for something without meat for tonight — I was trying to avoid going to the butcher for another week!
This soup turns out rich and creamy thanks to the navy beans being blended into the soup. It has a fresh but hearty flavor, and if you’re not a huge greens fan this is a good way to eat them since their flavor is not overbearing. Substituting sweet potato or squash for the navy beans would also be a delicious variation.
I use Spike seasoning because I have it in the house, but any spice blend that you enjoy (Mrs. Dash, herbes de Provence, etc.) will work fine. I served Alexia Ciabatta rolls with the soup, which were delicious. Just pop them in the oven for 10 minutes straight from the freezer, and you have freshly-baked rolls ready for dinner.
Vegetarian White Bean & Kale Soup
Adapted from Bean Soup With Kale
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 large sweet onion, diced
3 tsp. crushed garlic (or 6 cloves, minced)
2 carrots, peeled and diced
3 c. fresh Toscano kale, rough-chopped (about 8 large leaves, stems removed)
4 c. vegetable broth
2 15-oz. cans navy beans, undrained
4 plum tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 tsp. Salt-Free Spike seasoning (or any general spice mix you like)
1/2 tsp. salt (adjust based on your spice mix)
ground black pepper (I used about 15 grinds)
Parmesan cheese (optional, to sprinkle on top)
Heat oil in a large soup pot, and cook onions, garlic, and carrots over a medium-low heat until they are caramelized (about 10 minutes). Add remaining ingredients, stir well, cover and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat to low and simmer the soup, covered, for 20 minutes. Using an immersion (stick) blender, blend soup until almost smooth. BE CAREFUL not to splash hot soup on yourself! Cover and simmer for an additional 10 minutes.
Adjust seasonings and serve hot, sprinkled with Parmesan cheese.
October 28th, 2008
A packet of organic Chicken Tikka Masala spices from Arora Creations caught my eye at my kosher butcher a few weeks ago. The price made me pause — $4.49 for spices that would wind up serving 6 — but I bought it anyway just to give it a try. I love Indian food, and J. hasn’t been into it lately so I was looking for a fix!
It was delicious, and worth every penny. (Yes, I could make the spice mix myself, but I wouldn’t. Plus buying all the spices I needed would be a much more expensive outlay.) The spice packet comes with a simple recipe on the back, so it’s easy to cook a restaurant-quality dish with minimal effort, even if you’re not familiar with Indian spices.
I served the tikka masala with brown basmati rice and side of roasted cauliflower that I’d sprinkled with garlic and curry powder.
Arora makes several other organic spice blends, including a bhindi masala mix that looks great and is one of J.’s favorite Indian dishes.
October 23rd, 2008
I remember the fennel I cooked from last year’s CSA very fondly, when I roasted bone-in chicken pieces on top of it and other root vegetables. Look away if you’re a vegetarian: the drippings from the chicken mixed with the vegetables, giving them delicious flavor and adding just the right amount of fat to the dish. (I would do that roasting differently now, putting the chicken in first and adding the vegetables around the chicken after 20 minutes or so, then roasting them both together for another 40-50 minutes. It’s a technique Merrie taught me!)
I was really excited to cook with fennel again. This time I followed Elise of Simply Recipe’s suggestion to toss the fennel in balsamic vinegar and olive oil before roasting. I also sliced a medium sweet onion into the same thickness as the fennel slices, and sprinkled the whole thing with a little sea salt. I don’t care for raw or even still-firm cooked fennel, so I roasted my fennel and onions for closer to 45 minutes, until they were soft and caramelized.
My mom, J. and I all enjoyed this preparation, but I still prefer the fennel roasted with chicken.
October 23rd, 2008
I was so happy with this week’s share — it was autumnal and varied, and will be easy to use up while still being fun. (Yes, broccoli rabe and squash can be fun, didn’t you know?) I was particularly excited to get our first batch of sweet potatoes!
We received: 4 very dirty sweet potatoes, arugula and braising mix (I combined them in the green bag at the back of the photo), a beautiful cauliflower, a large bunch of broccoli rabe, toscano (dinosaur) kale, 2 carnival squash, and a bag of carrots.
I knew the toscano kale is also referred to as dinosaur kale from researching this vegetable last year. What amazed me was that G. was able to immediately figure out why it would have that name — the dark green, bumpy leaves resemble what we can imagine dinosaur skin might have looked like.
Only four weeks left in this year’s share. It went so quickly, and only my second year in it seems like such a normal, regular part of our weekly schedule. I’m sure some cabbage is coming my way in the next few weeks!
October 22nd, 2008
Broccoli rabe, carrots (beautifully twisted), lettuce mix, braising greens, fennel (yay!), a “quart” of potatoes (G. was measuring them — he went a little light), and a handful each of parsley and arugula.
I still have an eggplant, spinach, and some peppers from last week, too.
Every time we receive enormous carrots I get this crazy idea in my head that I should try my hand at making kishka, or stuffed derma, from scratch (take a look at this recipe for what that would entrail… I mean entail). I did, after all, have to make sausages using intestine casings when I volunteered at the Historical Society of Rockland County!
There are some vegetarian kishka recipes online, but they hardly seem worth the effort; I can’t imagine they’d taste like the traditional version I’m accustomed to at Jewish holiday dinners (though the kind my mom buys is in a synthetic skin). The one veggie version that does stand out as a possibility is from Blog d’Elisson. He places kishka in the same class as chopped liver: “enough of it would stop your heart — but what a happy way to go!” Amen.
October 15th, 2008
I first made this beet salad recipe as a side dish for Thanksgiving in 2005. It’s an easy, tasty, and colorful dish that you can make ahead and doesn’t need any reheating — ideal for a holiday meal. It won’t convert you to a beet-lover (sorry, Carol!), but if you already like beets I think you’ll enjoy this marinated salad, too.
I work off this Marinated Beet Salad recipe, but I recommend using whole grain mustard and decreasing the sugar a tiny bit. Red wine and apple cider vinegar work equally well, and I think adding back the reserved beet liquid is unnecessary.
I used my fresh beets from the farm this time, boiling them the night before and then peeling and slicing them when they cooled. Canned beets are fine too, and a lot less messy!
October 14th, 2008
We received baby spinach (looks lovely!), braising greens, green beans, 1 quart of white potatoes, 2 kinds of peppers (all sweet, I think), 4 large beets (no greens), an eggplant, and another bunch of collards.
The boys were loony during the pick-up, and I was too busy trying to keep them in line to notice the pepper varieties. Looks like they may be sweet Italia, and maybe banana peppers?
I have no plans for any of it yet, I’m lacking inspiration this week. Let me know if you have suggestions!
October 10th, 2008
My family once ate at Baang in Greenwich, CT to celebrate a birthday. I remember sharing the crispy spinach, which was simply fresh spinach, deep-fried and salted. It was delicious and certainly memorable — our dinner there was probably ten years ago.
This roasted kale is the same idea, but with much less oil. I followed directions I found online, but reduced the salt by half. (Even J., who is a total salt lover, thought it was plenty salty as I prepared it.) You’ll wind up with a nice big pile of greens, thin and crisp, almost like papery kale fries.
That’s one nice thing about cooking the kale in the oven: you don’t lose a lot of the bulk of the greens, even as they crisp up. I’m always disappointed by the yield when I saute my greens — a huge bunch gets reduced down to a few tablespoons, it seems. Not so with this recipe. At the end of the day, though, it’s still a huge plate of kale. This recipe doesn’t keep well, as the kale gets soggy and tastes way too salty as it cools. We made our way through about half the batch, and that was enough for us.
October 10th, 2008
Bok choi? Bok choy? I see both written, so I did some Googling and it seems that the appropriate way to refer to this Chinese cabbage is as either pak choi or bok choy (both are transliterations, natch).
I haven’t stuck to my plan for meals this week at all, and with this week’s CSA pick-up looming, I felt compelled to use up the bok choy at least. A quick stir fry for lunch did the trick. I cut up a block of drained and pressed firm tofu, and cooked it in a drizzle of canola until it was browned. Then I added the whole head of bok choy, which I’d sliced thin. A bit of minced garlic, ground ginger, and hoisin sauce (all jarred), a few more minutes of tossing the mixture over high heat, and this dish was ready.
Bok choy has a moderate cabbage flavor with a bit of bitterness, like mustard greens. I didn’t mind it in this dish, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to make it again either. I think I’ve preferred baby bok choy in the past, which is more mild. Regardless, I got it used up before this week’s share!
October 8th, 2008
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I'm Dara, the chick in the kitchen. Living in the suburbs of Manhattan with my two boys, ages 3 and 5, and husband. Trying to feed my family something more diverse than a different shape of pasta each night. Reach me at .